..LEGO City Undercover..

TT Games has taken us into the LEGO worlds of Lord of the Rings, Batman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and other such franchises. Fans of the LEGO games will tell you that these titles have evolved enough over time to be different yet still remain the simple "smash everything, puzzle it out, pixel hunts" they've loved since the first Star Wars LEGO games. This time though, TT has dropped the franchise route and gone at it alone for their first ever non-franchise LEGO game: LEGO City Undercover.

LEGO City Undercover can immediately be described as a light-hearted, kid-friendly version of Grand Theft Auto. This will make some parents happy, as their kids can now get a high-quality, sandbox game that doesn't involve players having to join up with crime lords and kill thugs (and cops) left and right. In LEGO City Undercover, gamers take the role of hero cop, Chase McCain, who is on the hunt for baddie, Rex Fury. A simple story, but one that has enough threads to keep even an adult audience interested. Why? Because LEGO City Undercover charms its older fans by parodying a slew of pop culture cop films and keeps the traditional humor found in LEGO games to provide a solid cop story fit for a varied audience.

This is a huge game in two ways. First, it's a Nintendo exclusive title, and one of the freshest and most original releases Wii U has seen in a few months. It's also huge for the Wii U because this is the first LEGO game published by Nintendo. This makes LEGO City Undercover an excellent exclusive, challenging (mostly parents) to make that decision to buy a Wii U for their family / kids, or an upcoming Sony or Microsoft system. LEGO City Undercover is a huge bid to try to win over families and children over to the Wii U.

Second, LEGO City Undercover is huge. The world can seem endless, with hundreds of things to do and dozens upon dozens of place to explore, all detailed and populated richly. While the game story breaks up into missions, there is the same feeling of a GTA game here: to take and leave missions whenever you please while you play around in the world LEGO City Undercover has built for itself. With a slew of vehicles to pilot and drive, the magic of LEGO prevails in this sandbox genre.

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